RESUMEN
Background: The health care delivery system of a country determines the health seeking behaviour of that country’s population. Women’s health care seeking behaviour is undocumented because women suffer the disease in silence, without seeking appropriate remedy for her illness. Hence the study was planned to assess the health care seeking behaviour and factors associated with it among rural women. Methods: This cross-sectional study was conducted in the catchment area of Rural Health Training Centre located in Thane district in January 2024. Sample size of women aged 18 years and above was estimated. Subjects were interviewed after obtaining verbal consent. Data was recorded in pre-designed proforma and was analysed with the help of Microsoft excel. Descriptive and inferential statistics was applied. The statistical level of significance was fixed at p<0.05. Results: Of the 400 women studied, 63.50% were illiterate. 52.75% visit private practitioners for treatment. 56.50% could make own decision regarding their health while 43.50% need permission from senior family members to visit health care facility. Only 42.50% visit to health care facility at the onset of symptoms. Due to time consuming nature, 35.75% were not using government health care facilities. Also, 22.50% women experienced unfriendly behaviour of the health care staff working there. Conclusions: More than half of the women could not seek medical care immediately, two third were not aware of the various government health schemes, emphasizing the need to create awareness about it through grass root level health workers. There is an urgent need to rebuild community trust about public health care facilities.
RESUMEN
Background: In India, infectious diseases continue to be predominant with emerging non-communicable diseases, imposing a double burden of diseases on health care system. Hence, the tertiary health care hospital-based study was done to compare the morbidity pattern of communicable diseases with respect to non-communicable diseases. Methods: A 2 years’ record-based data of admitted patients was collected in a tertiary health care hospital. The data was analysed using Microsoft Excel version 365. Significance of association and difference in proportions has been checked with chi-square test and Z test for SEDP respectively at significance level of 0.05. Results: During the study period of two years, 6818 patients were admitted in the hospital, of which 74.51% suffered from communicable diseases while 25.49% suffered from other types of disease including non-communicable diseases. Of the 5080, patients with communicable diseases, 57.74% were males and 42.26% were females. Communicable diseases and non-communicable diseases had male predominance (p<0.05) and was higher amongst age group 0-15 years (p<0.05). Hospital stay was prolonged in patients suffering from communicable disease (p<0.05). Significant increased difference was found in AFI, Malaria, Dengue and in Leptospirosis prevalence and significant decreased difference was found in acute gastroenteritis, IV, Covid-19, Respiratory infections and enteric fever (p<0.05). Conclusions: Communicable diseases continue to be a major threat to public health system in India. Through effective surveillance programmes, any change in trends of disease can be identified and suitable measures can be adapted to control and prevent it.